Stateline Tasmania

Accomodation Woes

AIRLIE WARD: This week, as a number of seriously ill Royal Hobart Hospital patients were being treated, their distraught relatives had to sleep in their cars. The families from Tasmania's north-west rushed to Hobart after their loved ones were flown to the Royal by air ambulance.

For three nights, one family which included an elderly man and two children slept in their car after they were unable to find affordable accommodation. They're angry and shocked that beds haven't been found at such a difficult time and their case is not unusual, as Lucy Shannon reports.

SUSAN FOLMER, DAUGHTER: Sunday morning around 11 o'clock she said she felt an enormous explosion in her head. Being prone to having headaches she tried to sort of side swipe it and not really acknowledge it.

As soon as triaged her and saw the symptoms they knew something serious had happened. And so they ran all the tests that they had to and they found she had had a bleed on the brain and a minor stroke and she had one, possibly two, blood clots that were aneurysms waiting to explode as well.

So they straight a way organised an air ambulance and my dad hopped in that with mum and they flew her straight down here to Hobart.

In the meantime, my sister and my two beautiful niece and nephew, we went and packed whatever we could in our highly emotional way and drove down.

LUCY SHANNON: Susan Folmer and her relatives arrived at the Royal Hobart Hospital from Burnie at 4:30 in the morning, anxious to see her mother.

SUSAN FOLMER: Dad was up with mum. And by that stage she had deteriorated even more. And I was able to just watch her because she couldn't talk her or anything.

LUCY SHANNON: Exhausted and upset, they had a warm drink and then tried to sleep in their car.

SUSAN FOLMER: Next day, mum had to have major surgery and they removed an extremely large aneurysm that actually exploded as they went to operate. And the doctor said to us that that was going to happen anyway, so it was really wonderful that we got her down so quickly because she wouldn't be here otherwise.

LUCY SHANNON: While 61-year-old Wendy Broomhall was enduring 10 hours brain surgery, family members were phoning dozens of hotels, motels and hostels trying to get a room.

SUSAN FOLMER: Last night, Pippie and her mum, my sister, they weren't allowed to but they slept in the couches in the waiting room in here. They sort of hid and slept. And my nephew and my dad and I slept in the car last night and the night before we all laid or slept in the car, all of us, as best we could.

A lot of the accommodation that we've been put on to, we can't afford. We just... at a minimum of $160 a night for what might be three weeks, we can't afford that.

My sister definitely hasn't slept for three nights now.

And I feel like I've only just dozed. I think we're at that unwell point of running on adrenaline, to the point where we're all pretty numb and all really titchy with each other. The kids have done an amazing job.

They've been really good. Kept us going.

LUCY SHANNON: Until six months ago, things weren't so bad for family members trying to find an affordable bed in Hobart's CBD. Ruth Howie ran the Argyle Guest House for twelve and a half years, offering bed and breakfast for under $30, just across the road from the hospital.

But with the council approving a multi-storey development, the guest house was closed.

RUTH HOWIE, ACCOMMODATION ADVOCATE: We used to fill our beds to about 200 beds per week and we would mainly deal with intensive care and neurosurgery, cardio-thoracic, we took over flow of Ronald McDonalds for their neonatal or sick kids. I dealt with every hospital in the state, police radio room, victims of crime, domestic violence. Most charities have at some stage paid for a bed in the guest house for someone.

LUCY SHANNON: During twelve and a half years filling 150,000 beds, there wasn't much Ms Howie didn't see.

RUTH HOWIE: When Port Arthur occurred, the massacre at Port Arthur occurred, we had 11 already intensive care people's families staying with us. One night we had 22 people sleep on the floor in the lounge room, which we didn't charge for, just to be near intensive care. On the fees that we at the guest house, we didn't make any money, we didn't make any money for the last seven or eight years. But we did it. We didn't have the heart to stop.... or the commonsense.

LUCY SHANNON: The business might have closed last year, but Ruth Howie's phone never stopped ringing.

RUTH HOWIE: I changed my number a number of times because my mobile phone number was given out to people and they would ring me at three o'clock in the morning in tears saying, "My whatever is in intensive care, there's been a massive trauma, I need a bed, can you help me? I was given this number." And I said "I can't help you" and they'd get angry with me.

LUCY SHANNON: One of those desperate calls this week was from Susan Folmer.

RUTH HOWIE: To get a phone call from someone who has got someone on life support and you've got a 70-year-old man sleeping in a car in a street because there's no affordable accommodation in the CBD, I can't even say it's disgusting, it's immoral. There's so many spare rooms at Royal Hobart Hospital.

LUCY SHANNON: Unable to ignore the flood of calls for help, Ms Howie decided to contact politicians in January.

RUTH HOWIE: I heard about an 82-year-old woman who was staying in a local backpackers near the Royal walking up four flights of stairs and staying at a room with nine German backpackers and I... to say I was horrified would be an understatement.

I took my business very seriously. I have to stop.

LUCY SHANNON: She started with Federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr, who then wrote a letter to State Health Minister Lara Giddings.

RUTH HOWIE: She hasn't even acknowledged my letter from Duncan Kerr. I rang the Liberal Party. They didn't even return my call. I went in to see Tim Morris and Peg Putt called me and volunteered on the spot how about we do a meeting in the town hall in Hobart?

PEG PUTT, GREENS MHA: I am absolutely shocked. This has to be one of the most stressful times in your life anyway to have somebody critically ill, to be saying goodbye in the last days of a loved family member, but to put on top of that the stress of having to sleep in your car with children, it's just heartless, it's beyond belief.

It was always a worry that the Government simply relied on Ruth Howie getting her act together out of her own volition to look after the families of people in a crisis situation in the Royal Hobart Hospital and now she's closed the Argyle Guest House not at her own volition either, the Minister has to act now.

LUCY SHANNON: Another north-west family is sleeping in their car while worrying about their 26-year-old son. Luke Cohen was in a serious car accident three weeks ago.

HILTON COHEN, FATHER: Everybody was upset and with nowhere to stay and it's cold, snow on the mountain the next morning so we had nowhere else to stay. So we just slept there.

LUCY SHANNON: Apart from quick trips home for supplies, Hilton Cohen has been at his son's bedside.

HILTON COHEN: You would think if you've got to travel to Hobart, someone would have somewhere where you could stay or the hospital could help you out with somewhere to stay. But we rang, as we said, we rang 40 hotels, the daughter and her husband looked for three or four hours.

It's very hard for us because you're worrying about your son being in hospital and to have the extra pressure put on looking for somewhere it's very hard for you.

LUCY SHANNON: It's not just the cost of accommodation. There's food and parking too.

SUSAN FOLMER: Going to go and see a community organisation for some support this afternoon because, you know, we don't have a base so we can't buy groceries so we have to eat out everywhere.

RUTH HOLMER; I told them about the staff cafeteria. They could get a meal for $5 or $6 a head. Why can't they get a meal there for $2.50 the same as the staff? They only throw the meals out at the end of the day. They can't give it to homeless because it's not packaged. It's a squanderous waste of resources our hospital system and you've got someone who doesn't acknowledge a need.

And for Ms Giddings I don't have to we have a need. 150,000 people or beds in twelve and a half years is enough. I don't have to prove myself to a politician that there's a need for people to be near the Royal in life-threatening situations. Or when they're on their knees, when they're dropped and they need a hug or they need a meal or a bed.

SUSAN FOLMER: So you don't budget for stuff like this, and so when I sat down over the last couple of days and thought how we're going to survive, I then felt really guilty about... I shouldn't be thinking about this. And then I got furious thinking why am I paying my taxes?

LUCY SHANNON: The Cohens are hoping they can get their son Luke home soon.

HILTON COHEN: The doctor first off told us he might have had a stroke. He is paralysed on one side. And he's got post amnesia, which he doesn't remember much. All he wants to do now is go home.

He wants to be where his family and friends are.

LUCY SHANNON: Ruth Howie is urging the Government to act now and provide beds.

RUTH HOWIE: It's about getting a person with their head down so they're coherent to make the right choices to be near someone that needs them to be there.

They put money into racecourses. They put money into football. But they don't put money into people who vote for them when... How would you word this? When they've lost everything.

AIRLIE WARD: Since we spoke to Susan Folmer earlier this week, her family has received free accommodation until Easter from a Hobart business operator.

The Health Minister, Lara Giddings, was not available to talk about the crisis. But in a statement, the deputy secretary for health services Catherine Katz said the Royal Hobart Hospital provides information about accommodation options and a subsidy of $30 a night to eligible carers.

Her statement said improving accommodation options is a priority and a review is under way and it will report to the Government in December.